Where the Heart Is
by Kirmon64
Summary: It's a good thing that 'home', for her, is more a set of conditions rather than than a single place. [Sela/Striker]
1. Y13: Where the Heart Is

Please tell me I'm not the only one that ships these two. LOL

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><em>She's spaceborn. Neopia is therefore somewhat unsettling.<em>  
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It feels strange, being planetside.

The gravity is all... wrong. The ambient noise is terribly off. The air smells too organic. It's too warm, too humid. She can feel the grass and the dirt underfoot, even through her boots. It's yielding like deck plating isn't.

The bay stretches out in front of her. Ocean all the way to the horizon. That's something else, there being a horizon at all. That's a lot of water. Saltwater, too. She thinks for a minute that there are going to be a lot of problems with corrosion down the road. Then she remembers that in Altador they still use things like stone.

(Not that she's insulting their skill or anything. Their architects are smarter than she'll ever be.)

The wind unsettles her the most, though. There's not much wind on a space station. Not unless the hull has been compromised. Not unless people are going to die.

The thought makes her shiver, despite the warmth.

She likes Yooyuball. Loves it, even. Every off-season she wonders why she'd ever thought of giving up on the team. Every summer they come back down to Neopia and suddenly she remembers. Feels like death here.

Endless, pulsing heat, like you'd only feel if the environmental controls were on the fritz. A high-pitched alarm trill of a birdcall in the distance. No background hum, so the generators must be offline. The wind rushes past; there must be a hull breech. The backup generators must be slagged, too, if there's no forcefields up to stop the atmosphere rushing into the vacuum -

Frag the team, frag Yooyuball. She just wants to go _home_.

The wind is suddenly blocked.

A hand comes to rest on her hip. There's the hum, the little mechanical noises; his power cells and his coolant pump and the tiny adjustments of internal mechanisms. There's the smell of solvents from when he'd cleaned his casings. The cold air radiates off of his frame - he hasn't been outside long, and so for now he's much cooler than the surrounding air.

"Are you alright, Sela?"

She smiles. Her own little piece of home, wherever she goes. She twines her fingers through his and leans back into the comforting chill.

"I am now, Striker."


	2. Y14: Once More With Feeling

Am I the only one that honestly wondered if Virtupets' lineup was going to be changed for 2012? And considering my headcanon that Virtupets' robots are scrapped if they're no longer needed in the position they were built for, I was a little worried for Striker and Goltron's sakes. lol getting attached to neopets characters lalala don't mind me.

Also, lol innuendos. I'm gonna get someone going "wat? eeeew", just going to call that now.

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>x-<p>

Sela kisses him, when they find out. It's probably a good thing they're in Sela's quarters, far away from the prying eyes of the public and the press and the rest of the team.

Striker doesn't have much in the way of expressions, and he's not very emotive anyway. It doesn't stop him from sagging into her embrace, all the tension released from his frame in one movement. He makes a noise into Sela's ear, something unidentifiable, a cross between a laugh and a sigh and a sob.

Yeah. It's definitely a good thing they're out of public view.

"See?" she says, clasping her hands behind his neck. "I told you. The fans love ya, Striker, there's no way management was gonna replace you with some shiny new model."

"They replaced the Goalinator," Striker points out, automatically, retreading the discussion-slash-argument they've had a hundred times over.

She grins a little, and decides to go along with it. Maybe he doesn't have emotions in quite the same way as organics do, but there is no mistaking the adrenaline rush of _relief_ written all over him. A little bit of teasing will do him good. "Yeah, but that was years ago. Slag, half of the management's changed by now. Besides," she adds, smile widening, "Keetra would throw a slagging fit if they made her deal with another robot like Goltron. At least you're quiet and stay out of the way."

"Only because you - _distract_ this unit," Striker replies, and there is just a hint of mischeviousness in his tone.

"Yeah, and I think I'm gettin' pretty good at it, too," Sela shoots back, and sticks her tongue out just enough that it touches Striker's nose.

"This unit does not need distraction _now_, Sela," he replies, in that special way that always makes her imagine he'd be smiling if he had a mouth. "Though this unit believes a distraction at this time would fall under 'celebratory'..."

His hand moves down just a little lower, coming to rest on her hip. Sela grins. "Slag, I taught you well, didn't I? I bet I coulda gotten away with claiming you as my 'personal assistant' if they did want to scrap you."

"This unit would not mind being your 'personal assistant'."

"Oh yeah? How about you put your money where your mouth is?"

"Acknowledged," he says, and he might as well be grinning from ear to ear. His hand starts to wander down again...

Oh yes. Definitely a good thing they have lots of privacy.


End file.
